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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America

Quantum-mechanical pointing fluctuations in stimulated Raman scattering

S. I. Kuo, D. T. Smithey, M. G. Raymer, Ian A. Walmsley

Published Jan 1, 1990• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have observed fluctuations in the direction of propagation of light pulses generated by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). This fluctuation is analogous to the pointing fluctuation of laser beams,1 and is due to quantum mechanical uncertainties in the occupation numbers of different spatial modes. When SRS is generated in an interaction region with Fresnel number less than unity, the lowest order spatial mode dominates the generation process, but higher order spatial modes are also weakly and randomly excited. This results in small fluctuations in the wavefront of the light field. The direction of propagation is characterized by the transverse component of an average wave-vector determined by the gradient of the wave-front. We report experimental results by measuring the "center of mass" of the far-field intensity pattern of a single Stokes beam, and the fringe separation of an interference pattern formed by superposing two independently generated Stokes pulses. The experimental results are compared to theory.2

DOI
10.1364/oam.1990.wu3

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Annual Meeting Optical Society of America•Jan 1, 1990•0 citations
We have observed fluctuations in the direction of propagation of light pulses generated by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). This fluctuation is analogous to the pointing fluctuation of laser beams,1 and is due to quantum mechanical uncertainties in the occupation numbers of different spatial modes. When SRS is generated in an interaction region with Fresnel number less than unity, the lowest order spatial mode dominates the generation process, but higher order spatial modes are also weakly and randomly excited. This results in small fluctuations in the wavefront of the light field. The direction of propagation is characterized by the transverse component of an average wave-vector determined by the gradient of the wave-front. We report experimental results by measuring the "center of mass" of the far-field intensity pattern of a single Stokes beam, and the fringe separation of an interference pattern formed by superposing two independently generated Stokes pulses. The experimental results are compared to theory.2
The far field direction of propagation of light pulses generated by transient, single pass stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is observed to fluctuate front pulse to pulse due to quantum mechanical uncertainties in the occupation numbers of different coherent spatial modes. When SRS is generated on the Q(l) vibrational transition in hydrogen with an interaction region Fresnel number near unity, the lowest-order coherent spatial mode dominates the generation process, leading to near-diffraction-limited Stokes light.
An experimental study of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) has been performed using a subnanosecond pulse to investigate the statistical properties of Stokes light generation.1 There are macroscopic fluctuations of Stokes pulse energy as well as random generation of spatial mode patterns. When the scattering volume has a low Fresnel number, the spatial patterns of the SRS resemble cavity modes. When the Fresnel number is large, there are irregular structures appearing across the Stokes profile in a random fashion. A theoretical study of the spatial and temporal coherence properties of Raman generation using a Gaussian-profile pump pulse has also been carried out. Using a Gaussian-Laguerre mode expansion technique,2 it is found that the higher-order spatial coherence modes1 experience different gain than the lower-order spatial coherence modes, and consequently the temporal coherence associated with each individual spatial coherence mode is different.
From a classical point of view the generation of Stokes light by stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) is not possible unless a Stokes input signal is supplied. On the other hand, the gain in SRS can be so large that without input the spontaneous build-up of strong Stokes waves can be observed. A proper quantum theoretical description1 shows that this spontaneous initiation of Stokes generation is due to microscopic random fluctuations originating from quantum noise associated with the dynamical variable Q(t) which is active in the Raman process, e.g., a molecular normal mode coordinate. In highly transient SRS -when the duration of the excitation pulse is shorter than the dephasing time- the Stokes field is proportional to the initial Heisenberg operator Q(0) describing the state of the system just before the excitation pulse is turned on (t=0). In this case the statistics of the final Stokes pulse energy is determined by quantum mechanical uncertainties associated with the random Raman polarization of the initial state2. On the other hand, in a steady state situation the Stokes pulse fluctuations are substantially reduced and the Stokes pulse energy is stabilized as a result of damping processes.
A pencil shaped region of a Raman-active medium forms a source for Stokes-shifted light via stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) when driven by an intense laser pulse. Stokes photons are scattered spontaneously at first, and then amplified during propagation through the medium. Since the scattering is initiated by quantum noise, the actual number of photons produced in any given pulse will be highly uncertain, even if the pulse energy of the driving laser is constant1. As the Stokes light propagates through such an extended region, it's coherence properties will be changed. The spatial coherence is determined by the size and shape of the region, which may be characterized by its Fresnel number F, defined as F= A/λSL, where A is the cross-sectional area of the interaction region, which has length L, and λS is the Stokes wavelength. The rate at which the microscopic scatterers (atoms or molecules) are dephased by collisions affects the temporal coherence of the Stokes light, characterised by the temporal coherence parameter Γτ /gL, where Γ is the collisional dephasing rate, τ is the laser pulse duration and g is the steady-state Raman gain coefficient.
We present a measurement of the beam-pointing fluctuations of a transient Raman-amplifier output using an interferometric method and a theoretical treatment of the three-dimensional, spatial propagation of transient stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) including the fluctuations of the Stokes field giving rise to the beam-pointing fluctuations. The theory is based on an effective steady-state model for the transient SRS process. By using nonorthogonal transverse modes to expand the field, we incorporate the effects of excess spontaneous-emission noise associated with gain-guided amplifiers. The agreement of the measurements with the theoretical treatment demonstrates that the beam-pointing jitter is caused by quantum noise. The beam-pointing fluctuations increase as the Fresnel number of the interaction volume increases because more spatial modes are excited.
Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) produces Stokes light pulses that originate from quantum noise and exhibit macroscopic amplitude and phase fluctuations from one shot to another.1 By using transient stimulated Raman scattering, we generated light pulses with macroscopic energy and temporal coherence times that were long compared to their duration. Stokes pulses were generated independently in each arm of an interferometer and were interfered together at the output. The position, modulation depth, and brightness of the interference fringes fluctuated randomly from one shot to the next. We obtained both the ensemble-averaged intensity and the fourth-order intensity correlation function of the interfered Stokes light. The average has a smooth envelope and shows no modulation, whereas the intensity correlation function has a depth of modulation of 0.35 for Stokes generation in the unsaturated (thermal-like) regime and 0.46 in the saturated (laser-like) regime. This is in agreement with predicted values of 0.33 and 0.5.2